


euphoria

by eversall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-War, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversall/pseuds/eversall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron knows what euphoria means thanks to Hermione; now, thanks to Harry, he's introducing the word 'sulker' to his vocabulary, even though that's not quiet right, because Harry is pining.<br/>.<br/>It's a quiet world after the war, but Ron and Hermione are in love, Harry and Draco are getting there, Dean reads Jane Austen novels, Neville is a walking train wreck, and above all, they're alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	euphoria

**Author's Note:**

> It was raining when I wrote this and I was remembering the way all my friends and I have had to say goodbye this past year. In a few weeks I'm leaving my hometown too. Starting over is terrifying.

It’s a bit anticlimactic, how they return. Ron oversleeps and Harry doesn’t bother waking him up, so he walks into Charms late.

“Mr. _Weasley_ ” Flitwick says, disapproving, and Ron ducks his head and tries to avoid laughing and getting himself detention on the first day back. And that’s that.

.

Hermione is nearly giddy with euphoria at being assigned homework again. _Euphoria_. She’d used that once to describe the feeling she got when she’d seen Harry come back to life, like all the heart in her couldn’t contain her joy.

Euphoria is settling in to half-heartedly attempt Divination problems while Hermione curls into his side, her hair tickling the underside of his chin.

“Your hair,” he complains, “it’s a menace.”

“Really?” she asks, smiling winningly. “Why don’t you write that under November 7th? Due to the movement of Neptune, Hermione’s hair will leap out and strangle me.”

“Oh yes,” Ron says, scribbling down something about Harry and how he’ll be feeling poorly that day, “you’re brilliant at Divination. A shame you’re not putting those Seer powers to use.”

.

Harry stares at Malfoy a lot. And not the way Ron stares at Neville sometimes, trying to work out how someone can possibly be that _uncoordinated_ and still have managed to lead the resistance – honestly, the man is slowly spreading jam on his eggs with one hand, engrossed in the paper in his other hand. Ron is absolutely _fascinated_ at the train wreck he knows will occur when Neville attempts to pick up his eggs like toast.

“Stop staring,” Hermione says, whacking him, “it’s rude.” Ron harrumphs and turns back to Harry, because anyway, _Harry_. He’s been quieter since the war ended, obviously, they all have, but Harry stares at Malfoy like he’s starved and only Malfoy can satisfy the sheer want written across the boy’s face.  

It’s stupid, the way Harry fixates on things and suddenly his whole world revolves around something that he’ll certainly mess up because he’s too self-sacrificing for situations to turn out like anything but the misunderstandings of a Jane Austen novel.

And yeah, Ron knows what those are. _Dean_ reads them, and isn’t even ashamed of it. He asked Hermione if that was normal and she’d gotten that look on her face which meant that a Jane Austen novel was probably going to appear at his bedside and if he didn’t read it she’d sulk while pretending not to sulk.

He’s kind of so far gone on her that he’d read the novel anyway and pretended he hadn’t just to see her sulk, because she’s adorable beyond words.

He wonders abstractly about the inevitable point where Draco and Harry will begin a relationship, and which one will sulk more. Probably Harry. Harry is a _fantastic_ sulker. (Is a sulker a word? He’ll ask Hermione.)

“God, Neville,” Hermione says, exasperated, “those are your _eggs_.”

.

Ron nicks the Marauder’s Map – Harry has shit hiding instincts, everything is concealed in socks at the bottom of his trunk – and watches it for a while. It makes him feel better, to know that Ginny is out on the grounds and Zacharias Smith is in the greenhouses with Neville and that even Malfoy is by the lake, pacing.

Hermione comes up behind him and snakes her arms around his waist, laying her head against his back and breathing in and out with him. She doesn’t ask about the map, just reassures herself that he’s here, in her arms, safe. They’re alive. They’re alive.

.

It’s not – it never gets easier, waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, his sheets ripped to shreds by his hands. He dreams about Fred and fire and brains wrapping around him and never letting go. One day he wakes up and it’s Harry that’s screaming; when Ron tries to wake him up Harry slams him against the wall with his wand pressed to Ron’s throat faster than Ron can blink.

What frightens Ron is that he has his wand pressed to Harry’s throat as well. Harry blinks sleepiness out of his eyes, Ron blinks confusion out of his, and they both let go and don’t talk for the rest of the night, just sit by the window and sleep like that, cross legged, and wake up with neck pains that don’t go away all day.

.

Hermione is staring helplessly at job brochures when he walks in one day, and so is Malfoy, sitting next to her.

“I don’t – we’re the top students in the class. We’ve been offered –“ she pauses, and Ron tips forward onto his knees in time to catch her as she hides her face in her hands and breaks into tears.

“I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life. I don’t _know_.” She sobs out, and Ron chances a glance at Malfoy, who is thumbing through the Healer brochures with glassy eyes.

“There’s only one thing I _can_ do with my life.” Malfoy says defiantly.

“You could be an Auror.” Harry says, and nobody even knew he was in the room. Malfoy startles, and looks up at Harry, who is looking out the window fiercely as if he’ll find the answer to his ridiculous crush _there_.

Ron shrugs when Draco looks at him.

“You could be.” Is all he says.

.

Ron skips an entire day of classes to floo out to Romania, unbeknownst to his parents, and visits Charlie and the dragons. Just because he can. Just because he’s alive and reckless, a teenager who can do anything he wants, because there’s a small part of him that wants to be caught with that grin on his face and the knowledge that he looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Just because he can.

.

“You’re an awful sulker.” He informs Harry the third time he comes in the dorms to see Harry moodily flicking his wand at his bed curtains and alternating between setting them on fire and drenching them with water. “I bet Malfoy doesn’t damage school property just to make a point.” Then he winces, because the Room of Requirement and Fiendfyre, and yeah, he could have worded that better.

“Sulker isn’t a _word_.” Harry responds snottily, and then sighs. “Draco won’t consider being an Auror. He _wants_ it, but doesn’t think he deserves it.”

“Yeah?” Ron asks idly, staring at how Neville is sleeping with his head hanging off of the bed and his arm smashed against his chest in a definitely awkward angle. He wonders how Neville is still _surviving_ , Merlin. “Kiss him and ask him to come then, Harry.”

“ _What_?” Harry asks, scandalized, as if Ron told him to dance the polka with Rita Skeeter. And oh, some images should never be brought up, _gross_.

“Oh, come off it. Be selfish for once in your life. Ask him to do it for you. He thinks he deserves to be something for you, surely?” Ron fires back. “Also, do you think we should wake Neville up before he breaks his arm like that?”

.

There’s nothing in the world more beautiful then Hermione at night, the way she gleams in the dark like the star to Ron’s poor knight in rusty armor. Ron will die for this, would rather see his world crumble around him then see the beating heart he holds in his power stop living. He loves her so much that it _hurts_ , some days, even when she’s safe and sound next to him.

He grips her hand tighter and memorizes the size of her ring finger.

.

Love is the way Harry curls just his pinky finger around Draco’s when they think no one’s watching, the way Hermione sometimes does Ron’s Divination homework for fun. The way Charlie doesn’t question why Ron floos to _Romania_ when he’s having a shitty week. Its in the way all the Eighth Years as a whole try to make sure Neville doesn’t accidentally die in his next coordination-related accident, and how they refuse to dismiss any part of their crumbling castle as inhospitable when the Ministry comes and tries to make a case for redesigning Hogwarts.

It’s the way Hermione pretends to be surprised when Ron proposes to her on the steps of the castle after graduation, with their families and friends – even Malfoy – watching, but ends up surprising herself anyway when she can’t help it and cries a little bit as Ron slips the ring onto her finger. Ron cries a little bit too, at the way her mouth forms the syllables of his name and the way he knows he is safe with her.

.

They all have a good laugh later though when Neville shows a stunning amount of coordination and chases Rita Skeeter into the lake.

**Author's Note:**

> Extra bit I ended up taking out of the story: Dean fancies himself stoic and mysterious like William Darcy, and Seamus and Ron agree that he's an asshole like Darcy, yes. Dean is a smug because despite being an asshole Darcy is a romantic gentleman who gets the girl in the end; Ron is just surprised that Seamus has read Austen too. Now Ron worries that he missed a vital part of his childhood education by not reading Austen earlier, and Hermione smugly agrees.
> 
> EDIT: now you can find me on [ tumblr!!! ](http://eversall.tumblr.com/) i know, you're SO excited *sarcasm*


End file.
